Submitted by Bob Boross, Aug 17, 2007 09:27

This article, giving Elvis Presley some sort of status as originator of a hip swinging, rock dance vocabulary, is not accurate and offensive to the real source of social rock dance movement. The use of legs, hips, and locomotion is all a derivation of African dance movements that were brought to this country with the migration of Africans in the slave trade. These movements, created in tandem with jazz music, were the bedrock of vaudeville and early jazz/Broadway performers. Elvis was imitating black dance, in his own slightly spastic way of moving (want to see real swinging hip movement? Find a clip of 30s Harlem dancer Snake Hips Tucker). The leg movements credited to Elvis were performed by hundreds of black and white vaudeville performers from the early 1900s on. To imply that Elvis was a creator, and that somehow Michael Jackson followed or was influenced him is ludicrous. Jackson is obviously influenced by the Afro dance tradition, James Brown, and white elegance as interpreted by black tap dancer Cholly Atkins, who created the Motown movement style of groups like the Temptations and Supremes - not Elvis. Elvis had impact because he was white, good looking, talented, and because he benefited tremendously from the mass exposure of television. But he surely is not an originator, or even a prime example, of a Afro influenced rock dance movement style.

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